Brocon - battle report 1 vs Warriors of Chaos

I played in Brocon in Limerick last weekend, t'was my first time playing in a tournament. It was really good fun, and most importantly every person I played was really nice. No bickering over millimetres or anything, which I was worried would be the case.

I had 5 games in total, 3 on the first day and 2 on the second. Here's how I got on:

• loss v Dice Chucker Mike's Warriors of Chaos 18-2 (dawn attack, Mike won the tournament!)
• loss v TLC Dave Dark Elves 15-5 (stupid watch tower)
• win v Hans' Vampire Counts 17-3 (meeting engagement)
• win v Dice Chucker Tony's Vampire Counts 17-3 (blood and glory)
• loss v TLC Nigel's Demons 20-0 (pitched battle)

I was super tired at the end of the second day, I'm sure the 3 games on Saturday tired me out. The drinking on Saturday night couldn't have had anything to do with it.

I won best painted army on Sunday, which was a very pleasant and complete surprise. Huzzah! \o/

This is the first battle report, with some hazy details, probably some whining, maybe some analysis / what I should do / what I would do next time against that particular army.

Here's the army list I took.

Battle 1: Vs the Warriors of Chaos

Turn 1, set up.

Scenario:
Dawn attack (= no castling for the dwarfs).

Army:
From left to right Mike took something along the lines of (I've never read the WoC army book so this is very likely wrong):

• 20 core warrior guys, with a lvl2 caster
• war alter thing which gave random gifts like extra attacks, or ward saves to units within 12"
• 15 elite troops, which had an extra attack (Mark of Khorne?), FC + halberds for Str 5
• 15 elite troops, which had a Mark of Tzeentch, I think it was a 5+ ward save in combat when combined with parry
• 40 Mauraders with GWs (a bargain at only 245 points!)
• 5 fast cav flesh hound things
• 6 chaos knights with ensorcelled magic weapons for Str 5

I should really go read the Warriors of Chaos book...

What Happened:
As his battle line advanced, I divided up my shooting. I really should have concentrated fire. I targeted the marauders with both of my grudge throwers, taking out about 12 of them. Organ gun and quarrelers fired on the non ward saving elite troops, with the cannon firing on the alter.

I don't remember which turns, but there were plenty of misfires. The organ gun didn't shoot for a turn, the cannon couldn't shoot for 2 turns, a grudge thrower couldn't shoot for a turn, and when they were firing the grudge throwers were less than accurate.

Turn 2

On the right flank:
The cannon took out a few of those knights, they were frenzied so charged my 40 block warrior bus. They eventually lost, I couldn't catch them with a pursuit roll of, literally, 2. The warriors failed their follow up charge and didn't get into combat with the flesh hounds.

Start of Turn 4 - Dwarfs

In the middle:
The hammerers were facing off against the tzeentch block of troops, and the marauders. Which ever side they went of the obstacle in the middle, they were guaranteed to get a flank charge the following turn. I charged them into the tzeentch block, where they did some small damage but not enough to win. The marauders got their flank charge in, and over a few turns (god I love stubborn) they wore the hammerers down. The hammerers didn't win a single round unfortunately.

Start of Turn 4 - WoC

On the left flank:
The 5 slayers charged into the warrior block aiming straight for the caster. Unfortunately the giant slayer was killed before he got to attempt any blows by the high initiative caster (who turned out to be quite choppy). The 4 slayers were wiped out in the same turn by the chaos warriors, again with no chance to retaliate. I had hoped they would hold them up for a turn, but how and ever.
The chaos warriors charged into the organ gun, taking it out and overrunning into the cannon.

To the right of the warmachines...
stood a 30 block of quarrelers. These boyos shot at the generals unit (the one with the extra attacks / mark of khorne) for two turns, taking out a few models, before reforming and taking a charge from them. They didn't last past the first round of combat. The already choppy khorne marked unit, got a boon of +1 attacks from the alter, which meant a ridiculous amount of str5 attacks and the end of the quarrelers.

Out of my 3 blocks, only the 40 block of warriors on the right flank did ok against the 4 chaos knights. The remaining chaos knight fled, and unfortunately the warriors failed to catch him.

Result:
18-2 Loss

What I would do differently:

• concentrate fire, big time, on the elite troops. Ignore the mauraders - it was tempting to fire on them because they could do a lot of damage and they didn't have an armour or ward save.
  In reality they were only 245 points, and they weren't the hardest hitters of the WoC army.
• <moan> dawn attack messed up my deployment quite a bit </moan> 

What didn't work well:
Too many misfires with arty. I don't like Grudge throwers. With two of them, each having a rune of accuracy, I hit the mauraders twice over 4 turns killing approximately 12 men.
Even the organ gun misfired, taking it out of the game for two turns.

What worked well:
I spent a lot of points on anti magic, he didn't get off a single spell the whole game.